1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an Urban Transportation System that provides a plurality of vehicles of uniform description for individual use and that are available for rent and intermediate storage at a storage and maintenance facility through an automated rent and return system.
2. Description of Prior Art
Urban centers of population are experiencing transportation difficulties that reduce the quality of life for individuals and that create problems for the population as a whole. Generally, individuals depend heavily on a personal vehicle for travelling from one point to another. These personal vehicles are typically powered by internal combustion engines which burn gasoline and contribute to pollution of the air. Most of the personal vehicles are large in order to be useful and comfortable for long distance travel and capable of performing a variety of activities, e.g. transporting a number of people. The vehicles are generally privately owned and specific to the individual user. Storing such vehicles requires a large amount of space that must be arranged to suit a variety of vehicles and must leave sufficient extra space to enter and move any vehicle. Vehicle storage along the streets occupies a substantial portion of the roadway. Storage in a parking garage, in addition to the lateral and overhead space, necessitates a large aisle through which the vehicles may drive and turn into an available parking place. The user often spends much time in locating an available parking space for the vehicle. The large size of the vehicles, in combination with the space reserved for on-street parking, slows the movement of traffic and causes difficulties in performing essential urban services such as street cleaning and garbage collection. Theft of vehicles also presents a problem for the owner and for the police, who must try to locate stolen vehicles.
In some urban centers, there is an effective mass-transportation rail system that has been installed at great expense to the city. In other urban centers, a rail system has proven to be infeasible, either due to the difficulty of condemning property for building the system, or due to the fact that the destinations of potential users are so diverse that a mass-transportation system cannot provide effective service. Often, a bus transportation system can overcome some of the difficulties, but the geography of some urban centers and individual schedules present problems for which there has been no suitable solution.
Many different systems have been proposed, or actually constructed, for providing effective mass-transportation for an urban center. The more modern versions include a degree of automation in order to insure safety of the passengers, to reduce operating personnel and costs, and to improve operation of the system in general. In spite of these advances, many people in the urban centers do not use the mass-transportation system on the basis that it is inconvenient for them, involving transfers from one line of the system to another and, finally leaving them at a location that is an inconvenient distance from their ultimate destination. Also, many people do not like or desire to be in close contact with other passengers who are using the transportation system. Thus, it is common to observe many personal vehicles in use while having only one occupant.
The managers of some cities have recognized these problems and have attempted to solve them by various regulating ordinances and by setting goals to replace gasoline-powered vehicles with electric vehicles in order to reduce air pollution. These ordinances and goals have been only partially effective. The manufacturers of automobiles have cooperated in this effort by improving and producing electrically powered vehicles. These electric vehicles are designed for a variety of purposes that involve high speed and a large range of travel on a single charge to the batteries. The batteries, in consequence, are large, heavy and expensive. Sale of these vehicles has been disappointing because of the high cost of the vehicle and the large size and weight of the batteries. A longer driving range requires larger and heavier batteries and, at the same time, the heavier vehicle (as a result of heavy batteries) consumes more electricity, again increasing the required size of the batteries. Vehicle manufacturers are also developing highly efficient gasoline or alternate fuel internal combustion engines (e.g. methanol, propane or possibly hydrogen) and hybrid vehicles (using a combination of internal combustion engine and electric motor drive systems). These types of vehicles provide a compromise between the traditional air-polluting gasoline-burning vehicles and the heavy and expensive electric vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,726,885 issued Mar. 10, 1998 to Klein et al. provides a “Hire Vehicle Transportation System”. The Klein et al. patent discloses an apparatus and method for reserving, dispensing and returning particular vehicles of respective users. The system of the Klein et al patent provides the user with a key for a particular vehicle. The key and the vehicle are returned when the rental use ends.
The Klein et al. patent does not, however, provide or contemplate various novel and useful features of the present invention. One significant and novel feature of the present invention is the provision of a pool of substantially uniform vehicles for rental so as to obviate the selection of a particular vehicle or type vehicle and to thus permit more compact vehicle storage. Compact vehicle storage results from vehicle uniformity, since the user is always issued the most accessible vehicle. Further features, combined with the use of generally low-pollution urban vehicles, provide benefits not heretofore available, as will be more fully disclosed below.